# F'ing cigar tax!



## Envision (Sep 24, 2007)

I am in Virginia currently, and there doesn't seem to be very many people (locally, anyway) that are concerned with this new overtaxing of our fine cigars. Everyone I have talk to at my local B & M (excluding owners and employees) have not had much of an opinion. Mostly because a lot of the business there is from frat boys (and a few frat mattresses) spending mommy and daddy's money. Their lack of opinion has forced me to want to take some sort of large scale action. Maybe an organized herf, where everyone coming to the herf signs a petition that could easily be passed from city to city and state to state, until we reach a certain number of signatures. Then that petition could be forwarded to someone in the "higher ups" so that something might be done about this useless attempt to drain people of their hard earned money. 

I don't know enough people here in VA, being from MI, to organize this sort of thing, but I want to do my part in (hopefully) stopping this bill from passing. I welcome your opinions and suggestions on this matter, and hope that someone with a little more "pull" might organize something like suggested in the preceding. Thank you in advance for your time anf thoughts. 

Happy herfing, y'all!


Chris (Envision)


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## 12stones-cl (Aug 6, 2007)

Well, other than calling your Senators, there's not much else to be done at this point since the voting should happen in the next couple days. I'm pretty sure that the voting's already been decided in the Senate too. It's just a matter of formalizing it. But, if you haven't called already, definitely do so.

Now, if you could organize a big sit-in herf in front of the capitol building...that might work.


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## Envision (Sep 24, 2007)

Well, that goes to show you how new I am to this whole thing. I wasn't even aware of it until about 3 or 4 days ago, and it has been eating at me. Calling the senators is surely in my "things to do" list. Today being the time to do so, apparently. Thanks for the info, stones!


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## The Bruce (Mar 7, 2006)

I am surprised that Cigar smokers do not have a real Lobbying group. In order to get our views out would take a lot of money since we would need to answer the radio spots and TV adds to correct this misleading ones that are funded by the opposition. 

The current strategy in our state is that our Congresswoman voted to extend the SCHIP plan. Well, no, she did not. She voted to expand the plan. The advertisement also states that the President will veto the bill canceling the extension. Again, no, he is vetoing the expansion because of the taxes and because SCHIP is the first step to National Healthcare. The President thinks the SCHIP program is good and thinks it should be expanded although not to the current proposed size. If SCHIP was reauthorized or expanded reasonably the President would have signed the bill into law. But the people who do not care for the families that will be affected when the SCHIP plan expires at the end if September are the supporters of the expanded SCHIP bill. They could have reauthorized the bill as it is and later proposed this expansion. At the very least at those people who are benefiting from the current plan will remain covered and not used as political pawns.

That is the real story and it is not getting out there. I am thinking Cigar Smokers are a very small group thus we have no political clout. If we are big enough we need better more aggressive representation. Maybe the smoke filled rooms that the world is ruled from are really rooms with leaders plotting with tons of unruly children in the background.


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## Skystorm82 (Sep 14, 2007)

Don't you just love breaking into a new hobby and finding out the feds want to screw it all up?


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## Envision (Sep 24, 2007)

I'll tell you, it's KILLING ME! I am just getting by as it is, being that I just moved 11 hours away, given the price of some of my favorites. To find out that a $6 cigar could possibly cost me $9 is unreal! I could have tons of cheapo's laying around my humi, but I happen to have slightly expensive taste, apparently. I am going to have to break out the credit cards before this shit passes, in fear that my humi will remain empty due to the sheer cost of the hobby. I do enjoy them, and will pay what I am forced to, but I won't be able to purchase the number of cigars per trip as I do currently. Talk to you again! Chris


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## 12stones-cl (Aug 6, 2007)

The Bruce said:


> I am surprised that Cigar smokers do not have a real Lobbying group. In order to get our views out would take a lot of money since we would need to answer the radio spots and TV adds to correct this misleading ones that are funded by the opposition.
> 
> The current strategy in our state is that our Congresswoman voted to extend the SCHIP plan. Well, no, she did not. She voted to expand the plan. The advertisement also states that the President will veto the bill canceling the extension. Again, no, he is vetoing the expansion because of the taxes and because SCHIP is the first step to National Healthcare. The President thinks the SCHIP program is good and thinks it should be expanded although not to the current proposed size. If SCHIP was reauthorized or expanded reasonably the President would have signed the bill into law. But the people who do not care for the families that will be affected when the SCHIP plan expires at the end if September are the supporters of the expanded SCHIP bill. They could have reauthorized the bill as it is and later proposed this expansion. At the very least at those people who are benefiting from the current plan will remain covered and not used as political pawns.
> 
> That is the real story and it is not getting out there. I am thinking Cigar Smokers are a very small group thus we have no political clout. If we are big enough we need better more aggressive representation. Maybe the smoke filled rooms that the world is ruled from are really rooms with leaders plotting with tons of unruly children in the background.


Well said, Erik. That's definitely the story that's not being told. The Dems want to paint it as a "Bush is against the health of children" ploy when in actuality, if they would make a reasonable expansion this would be done with (which I still don't want it to be since it would still tax the hell out of cigars).


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## The Bruce (Mar 7, 2006)

12stones said:


> Well said, Erik. That's definitely the story that's not being told. The Dems want to paint it as a "Bush is against the health of children" ploy when in actuality, if they would make a reasonable expansion this would be done with (which I still don't want it to be since it would still tax the hell out of cigars).


Well, the expansion of the plan the President wanted to do was funded from current revenue (i.e. not tobacco taxes.). The Opposition wanted a bigger expansion that they plan on paying for through a larger tax on Tobacco.


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## 12stones-cl (Aug 6, 2007)

The Bruce said:


> Well, the expansion of the plan the President wanted to do was funded from current revenue (i.e. not tobacco taxes.). The Opposition wanted a bigger expansion that they plan on paying for through a larger tax on Tobacco.


Right, what I meant here is that in the compromise, since neither will see the other's side completely, the tobacco tax would most likely still be the source of funding.


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## happy1 (Jun 29, 2007)

They need Welfare REFORM!!!


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## JohnR (Apr 1, 2007)

I stopped into my local B&M and had a conversation with the manager regarding the pending cigar tax legislation (the Bull Schip Bill). He felt that if this passes, it will probably be the end of his walk-in humidor. He'll be left with just the machine-made cigars and cigarettes. You can check over my math, but I think it pretty much tells the story. (For the sake of our discussion, he figured a 30% store markup.)

We discussed a hypothetical cigar that costs him $10 per stick that he would mark up 30% and sell for $13. Under the new tax, it would be $10 plus $3 tax, so $13 cost. They would then mark it up 30% to $16.90. So, you just added $3.90 per stick or a 30% increase. This cigar fairs quite a bit better because of the maximum cap of $3 per stick. I don't know about you, but I don't buy many sticks in the $13 range now, so this is not much comfort.

Applying that same math to:

*$5.65 (cost) Cigar*

This is the worse case, because it just barely reaches the $3 max tax.

A $5.65 cost cigar that would normally sell for $7.35 would now jump $3.90 per stick to $11.25. Applying this to a box, a box of 25 would go from $183.75 (25 x $7.35) to $281.25 (25 x $11.25). Ouch! That hurts.

*$2 (cost) Cigar*

$2 cigar (cost) that would normally sell for $2.60, would jump to $3.98. So a bundle or box of 25 that would sell now for $65, would go to about $99.50.

*$1 (cost) Cigar*

$1 cigar (cost) that would normally sell for $1.30, would go to $1.99. So a bundle at about $32.50 now would now jump to $49.75.


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